Year 2019 saw all types of films working at the box-office. Comedies, action dramas, romantic and even serious and thought-provoking films made their mark at the turnstiles.
Aditya Chopra’s War proved to be the highest grosser of the year among Hindi films. It netted Rs. 318 crore and was actually the only film to join the Rs. 300-crore club. Across languages, it was Disney’s Avengers: Endgame (English and all dubbed versions) which won the box-office race with a total net collection of Rs. 372 crore.
If War found so much love at the ticket windows, so did the other film of Hrithik Roshan, Super 30. The biopic of mathematician Anand Kumar collected a total of Rs. 146 crore to emerge a box-office winner.
If Hrithik had it good in 2019, Akshay Kumar had it even better. Akshay was, in fact, the star who last year, too, gave the trade the maximum revenue. Four films starring Akshay hit the screens in the year gone by and all the four recorded phenomenal numbers. His first release was Kesari which netted Rs. 155 crore. The medium-budgeted Mission Mangal came next and just about joined the Rs. 200-crore club. The big-budgeted Housefull 4 followed and surpassed Mission Mangal collections, albeit by barely Rs. 3 crore. Year 2019 ended with Akshay’s Good Newwz which is still running and which, from the looks of it, will easily surpass the mark of Rs. 200 crore.
Actually, year 2019 started with a bang as Uri – The Surgical Strike, released in the second week of January, made people go ga ga over it. The audience’s josh to watch the film was so high that it surpassed everybody’s expectations to join first the Rs. 100-crore club, then the Rs. 200-crore club and ultimately stop at a mind-numbing Rs. 250 crore. For a film in which the investment was less than Rs. 35 crore, the total collection figure was nothing short of a feat!
If January boasted of Uri, February had two films to talk about despite being the smallest month of the year. Gully Boy, with its net total of Rs. 137 crore, took rap singing in India to a different level altogether. True to its title, Total Dhamaal did absolute dhamaal at the box-office and succeeded in netting Rs. 153 crore.
Besides the big-budgeted Kesari, the month of March threw up two medium-budget success stories in Luka Chuppi (Rs. 86 crore) and Badla (Rs. 88 crore).
Vivek Agnihotri’s The Tashkent Files, released in April, found much appreciation. It started slow but ended up at around Rs. 18 crore. The net box-office collections may not be a huge number but the small-budget film yielded profits all the same. Importantly, it ran in cinemas for more than 10 weeks!
Adult romcom De De Pyaar De, released in the month of May, fell short of Rs. 100 crore by about Rs. 5 crore but it was a success alright.
June delivered two hits — Kabir Singh and Article 15. Despite a small section of the audience making a big noise on social and in other media about the inappropriateness of Kabir Singh, Shahid Kapoor’s film went on to become a blockbuster with a net collection total of Rs. 277 crore! The medium-budgeted and dark Article 15 further brightened the month of June with a take of Rs. 65 crore.
If Ayushmann Khurana’s Article 15 gave the trade reason to smile, his Dream Girl and Bala brought even more cheer in the industry. The two comedies tickled the funny bone of the audience and made their respective producers and distributors laugh all the way to the bank. Dream Girl, released in September, netted a dream total of Rs. 141 crore. Bala, released in November, was the other Rs. 100-crore film from Ayushmann in 2019. It recorded a revenue total of Rs. 115 crore.
If July was a super month for the trade, it was thanks to Vikas Bahl’s Super 30 which had a long and meritorious run and collected Rs. 146 crore. The month of August belonged to Akshay Kumar and Vidya Balan who jointly made Mission Mangal a hit. Besides Dream Girl in September, there was the comedy flick, Chhichhore, which resonated so wonderfully with the public that it almost touched the Rs. 150-crore mark.
October started with a bang because War took the nation by storm. The fireworks between Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff made even the Diwali fireworks in the fag end of the month pale into insignificance. The Diwali release, Housefull 4, managed to join the Rs. 200-crore club as it netted Rs. 203 crore.
Marjaavaan (Rs. 48 crore) and Commando 3 (Rs. 33 crore) were the November releases, besides Bala, which made the trade continue the celebrations long after Diwali festivities were over.
The last month of the year was one of the best. It started with the comedy hit, Pati Patni Aur Woh and ended with an even bigger comedy hit, Good Newwz. Between the two laugh riots, Rani Mukerji came up with an issue-based hit in Mardaani 2.
Besides the aforementioned Hindi successes, hits, super-hits and blockbusters, there were some dubbed (in Hindi) versions of Hollywood films which scored in India. Alongside the original English versions, their Hindi and dubbed versions also fared very well.
Captain Marvel netted Rs. 86 crore, Aladdin collected Rs. 55 crore, and Annabelle Comes Home, Rs. 29 crore. Spider-Man: Far From Home collected Rs. 88 crore, and Fast & Furious: Hobbs And Shaw, Rs. 70 crore. But the animation film, The Lion King towered above all of them with a take of Rs. 157 crore. Jumanji: The Next Level, which is still running in the cinemas, has crossed the Rs. 55-crore mark. Of course, the biggest of them all (Hollywood and Bollywood) was Avengers: Endgame.